


The End of the Beginning

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: Octavia Street musings [3]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Angst, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 20:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16103540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: Autumn 1993.





	The End of the Beginning

Nick got off the train at St Austell with his heart full of dread. He knew what he had to do, but he still didn’t know how, or if he could even face it. He’d known as soon as his course schedule and hospital hours had come though. He’d sat and looked at the papers for hours, trying to work out if he could juggle things, rearrange, but every small gap that existed was going to need to be filled with studying. He’d only just scraped the grades he’d needed to get in, despite working his socks off at every opportunity. He’d been too distracted, he realised, spent too much time either in Cornwall, or with Ilsa in London, or working shifts in the pub to pay for the next train ticket. He hadn’t left enough time to study and it had nearly cost him his place in med school.

Ilsa ran to him as she always did and threw her arms around him, and he could feel his resolve crumbling almost immediately as he felt her in his arms and smelled her hair, as she smiled up at him with that loving smile that was for him only.

She frowned at him a little then. “You okay?” she asked, searching his face. He pulled back, looking away, evasive. “Tired. Long journey,” he said. She nodded uncertainly.

“Let’s get you some tea,” she said, and took his hand. They were quiet as they made their way to the car and she drove them up to her village. Normally she’d be full of chat about this and that, bubbling happy to see him. He felt like a complete shit already.

Dinner was quiet too, Nick making polite conversation with her family. Afterwards she dragged him upstairs. “Come on, let’s just go and rest,” she said, worry on her face now. Nick was never this quiet.

She crawled onto the spare bed and he lay next to her. He didn’t even know how to start.

Ilsa smiled at him. “Bet I can wake you up, make you feel better,” she said, and leaned over him and kissed him, wrapping her arms around him.

Nick hadn’t seen her for three weeks and his body responded immediately. She broke away to run kisses down his jaw and neck, sucking gently on his skin, and he was sorely tempted just to give in and go with the moment, to love her and feel her respond to him, to bury himself in her, heart and body.

But he still had to do what he had to do, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who could sleep with her first. At least he fervently hoped he wasn’t.

He sat up, easing her away gently. “Ilsa, stop...”

She sat back and looked at him, worried now. “What’s the matter?”

Nick took a deep breath. “I think we should stop seeing each other,” he said.

She visibly blanched, the colour draining from her face. He tore his gaze away, unable to look at the disbelief, the devastated hurt in her eyes.

“ _Why?_ ” she whispered, horrified.

He’d rehearsed this, what he had to say, the points he had to get across. But his mind was blank suddenly, tears threatening even as hers spilled down her cheeks.

“I...I got my uni schedule, it’s crazy full, I have to spend all my holidays on rotation in hospitals shadowing. You’re going to be in Scotland, Ils, while I’m all over London in various hospitals. It won’t work.”

“We’ll make it work,” she said fiercely.

Nick shook his head. “I’ve tried,” he said hopelessly. “Ils, I only just scraped in, I’m already starting behind...”

“I’ll transfer to London,” she said. “LSE...”

Nick shook his head again. “You know Edinburgh is the best place for the course you wanted,” he said. “I won’t let you do that for me.”

“I’d never have applied if I thought it would mean losing you!” Ilsa cried.

Nick swallowed hard and soldiered on. This was going so much worse than he’d even dreaded. She was crying properly now, barely even listening, desperately searching for any crumbs of hope. _Don’t leave her hanging,_ he reminded himself. _She needs to be free to do her own thing, not spend five years waiting for you to be available again._

“It’s for the best,” he eventually said, quietly, looking down at his hands in his lap.

“Whose best?” she wailed. “Not mine. I love you, Nick, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it work.”

She suddenly went even paler, pulling away from him, shrinking into herself. “Is that it?” she whispered. “You don’t love me enough to try?”

He couldn’t think of an answer to that. If he tried to explain how much he loved her, he’d start crying himself. He owed it to her to let her go cleanly, able to look forward and not back, not to cling to something that could never work simply because he was too weak to do what needed to be done.

There was a long silence, and then Ilsa got up and left the room. He heard her bedroom door close.

After long minutes, he lay back and just looked at the ceiling.

...

Nick was in the kitchen when Ilsa padded quietly in in her dressing gown at seven o’clock the next morning. She stood in the doorway and looked at him, standing with his coat on and his rucksack over his shoulder.

He’d actually been stood there for half an hour, unable to go without seeing her, unwilling to wake her, knowing he was a heel whatever he did. Now he wondered if quietly leaving might have been better. Ilsa looked awful, her face pale and blotchy from crying, heavy bags under her eyes. Nick was sure he didn’t look much better. He’d barely slept.

The silence was strained, an unbearable chasm between them.

“I, er...” Nick sighed and ran a hand through his sandy hair. “There’s a train in an hour. I’m going to go ask Oggy to drive me.”

She nodded.

He reached for her. “Ilsa...”

She made a distressed sound and pulled her arm away out of his reach. “Don’t,” she whispered.

He stood and looked at her. Nodded.

“Goodbye,” he said quietly, and left.

Ilsa sank down at the kitchen table and buried her face in her arms, and that was where her mother found her ten minutes later.

...

Nick dashed tears from his eyes angrily as he walked around the village, trying to compose himself. Eventually he made his way to Joan and Ted’s, let himself in the side gate and stood and threw little bits of gravel at Cormoran’s window until he was rewarded with a tousled head and a grumbled “what?”.

“Sorry, mate,” Nick said. “Can I have a lift to St Austell? Train’s in half an hour.”

Cormoran looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “I’ll get dressed,” he said. “Stay there.”

Five minutes later he appeared, trainers in one hand and car keys in the other, at the back door. He looked at Nick’s pale face, the shadows under his eyes. “What’s happened?”

“Ilsa and I broke up,” Nick said shortly.

Cormoran looked at him for a long moment. “Mate, I’m sorry,” he said quietly. Nick nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

“Look, I was going back myself tomorrow,” Cormoran said. “Can you hang on till the next train? I’ll come with you.”

Nick shook his head. “Just want to go, to be honest,” he said. “And I’m not exactly good company right now.”

Cormoran paused, then nodded. “Let’s go, then.”

They drove in silence, parked in silence, waited for the train in silence.

Eventually Cormoran spoke. “Is it really over?”

Nick nodded.

Cormoran turned to look at him. “Why, mate?” There was no accusation in his voice, only sympathy.

Nick shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said shortly. Cormoran nodded as the train trundled into view.

Nick picked up his rucksack as the train pulled in. He turned to say goodbye to his friend and was surprised by a sudden hug.

“I’ll give you a shout later in the week, we’ll have a beer before you start med school and I head to Oxford?”

Nick smiled. “That’d be good. Thanks, Oggy.”

Cormoran nodded again and watched as his friend boarded the train. He quietly resolved to pop round to see Ilsa that afternoon and see if she was okay.

On the train, Nick found a table, stowed his rucksack and pulled his battered paperback from his coat pocket. He tried to read as the station and then the Cornish countryside slipped by, but the words swam and blurred and then a tear fell onto the pages. He sighed and shut the book, closed his eyes and leaned his aching head on the window, praying for sleep to fill the hours he had to sit on this train while it took him further and further away from the only girl he’d ever loved.

 

 


End file.
